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The logo of Covert Browser, the first official implementation of Tor for iPhone and iPad.

True anonymity on the mobile Web just came a few steps closer for tens of millions more smartphone users.

Early this week Apple approved Covert Browser for iPad to be sold in its App Store, the first official iOS app that allows users to route their online communications through Tor, what many consider the world's strongest anonymity network. Just a few days later, Apple has now approved a version of Covert Browser for iPhone, too.

"It’s important for everyone to have access to anonymity and privacy on the Internet, no matter what device you're using," says Stephan Hoffman, the Austrian app developer who built Covert Browser. "Everyone should be able to access the Internet unmonitored."

Using traditional VPNs and proxy servers to re-route traffic and avoid censorship and monitoring has long been possible on the iPhone. But whereas those services take a single bounce through a server that leaves users vulnerable to exposure by whoever runs that service, Tor triple-encrypts data and then routes it through three different computers around the world, each one removing only one layer of encryption. That vastly slows down Web surfing, but in theory means no one--neither network snoops nor even the Tor nodes themselves--can identify who is communicating with whom online.

Apps that enable Tor have been available at times to users of jailbroken iPhones. But Covert Browser is the first to be officially sanctioned by Apple, albeit at a price of $2.99.

Some early users of Covert Browser have reported bugs in the program that cause it to crash, though Hoffman has promised quick fixes. Andrew Lewman, executive director of the non-profit Tor project, says he's still looking into the app's implementation for potential security issues. After all, Hoffman simply used Tor's open source code to write his app, and has no official connection to Tor. "The author appears to have the right mindset for security and protecting users," says Lewman, but cautions that "using Tor and safely using Tor are two very different things."

Users of Google's Android operating system already have access to a Tor-endorsed implementation of the anonymity system known as Orbot, one of the apps offered by the anonymity-focused smartphone development group the Guardian Project. But Hoffman says Apple's stricter developer limitations shouldn't prevent Apple users from having the option of being anonymous online, too. "It's not easy to conform to Apple's strict development policies," says Hoffman. "But there's no reason that this shouldn't be possible on the iPhone or iPad."